Istanbul Airport

Not Verified | The airport is huge but not recommended for long hours of rest. Free Wifi for 1 hour. People are sitting on the ground, no free hot or cold water. Airport staff pretend to understand English, but don't.

✅ Trip Verified | This is a huge modern airport, very clean, following all the COVID rules, with hand sanitizer everywhere etc.. Unfortunately, in this gigantic airport there is no consideration for passenger comfort, and barely any seating is provided. The result is that passengers are obliged to sit close together even on the seats clearly marked for social distancing. Where do you expect them to wait, as there’s nothing else available? There are people sitting on the floor everywhere, even sleeping on the bare tiles. It’s shameful that such a new airport with all the mod cons not provide comfortable seats for the passengers in transit. Turkish Airlines clearly wants people to sit and spend money in the airport restaurants, which explains why they don’t provide any seating.

✅ Trip Verified | This is a brand new airport and its is huge. Be prepared to walk long long distances which is understandable in the modern world and for airports of the future. The reward is that it has many runways so taxi times are quite short. No free bottled water so be prepared to pay for water at restaurant costs. Most eateries are upmarket but upstairs hidden there are a few fast food outlets. A nice sports bar too. And a smoking balcony which is a bonus for some. Poor seating and many people sitting on the floors. Look upstairs for some additional quiet areas with less crowds. Free wifi for only one hour! Be prepared. Security is quick and efficient. They ask for shoes and laptops to be separate but I did not bother and it was fine. Overall its an airport of the future and I am sure in a few years once it settles in, it will be provide competition in the region.

Not Verified | Customer service or the lack of it. Serious communication problems. All Turkish staff do not understand English well at all and will pretend they do by nodding their head and pushing you off to the next man so that it's no longer their problem. Supervisor did this as well. They all do this because they genuinely do not care about your problem. Wifi only connects for an hour, after that you have to pay. It takes a really long time to get to your gate or anywhere you need to go because the airport is excessively too big. If a senior were to visit this airport it would be very difficult for them to acquire assistance because of the lack of genuine readiness to assist foreign travellers in dire need of help. If they needed a ride on an electric wheelchair operated by service staff, they prompt you to pay them 20 Euro. What a joke? I missed my flight because of the lack of genuine assistance as well as not taking responsibility and reimbursing my flight, instead, I had to pay more money for another flight all together and remained in the airport for an additional 12 hours. Nobody cared about the problems the staff created for me nor the inconvenience they put me in. Do not recommend.

✅ Trip Verified | Considering this is a brand-new airport and the sanitation procedures put into effect due to the COVID-19 pandemic – especially when it comes to air travel - it is hardly surprising that this airport was spotless. It will be interesting to see this airport again when the pandemic is over, and all of the public areas are fully functional. In the meantime, it was a very pleasant layover (considering the circumstances), and top marks for trying to get the Christmas spirit going.

✅ Trip Verified | All beauty, no substance. Clearly built to look nice, not to actually be easy to use, for the same reasons several reviewers have already mentioned. Distances are huge, it takes one hour to get to your gate and it can change all of a sudden and leave you stranded. Internet lasts very little and then you have to pay. And even if you pay it's horrible, slow, keeps disconnecting. I haven't used wi-fi this bad since 2004.

✅ Trip Verified | From Amsterdam to Istanbul to Bali transfer. Twice we saw gate F16. So we go to sit there, from where we came out we had to walk a few kilometres to get to F16. Very tired. Its a very big airport. After an hour or so, the plane was going from another gate. We were surprised. Service desk was very rude, not helpful and laughed at what was happening to us. It was our fault because you have to watch the departure display every 10 minutes and was told gate numbers changes very often. On the ticket there was no gate number. Internet is very difficult, absolutely not easy. Most don't understand English. Finally we bought two single tickets back to Amsterdam and our holiday was a disaster. We lost almost E1300 euro for nothing. I traveled many times and saw many airports, this is the worst airport I ever saw. Hospitality is very bad for tourists. You have to walk very long distances from gate to gate.

Not Verified | A modern and spacious airport. Being a new one, state of the art buildings, architecture, and decoration, most travellers were a bit confused meeting new everything in IST. That resulted in a degree of discomfort and a lot of effort walking here and there to find what they needed. Most of junior staff that passengers meet everywhere in IST speak their mother tongue only. It would help a lot if those in contact with passengers are offered courses in basic English, French, or Dutch language. A noticeable number of staff and employee were tense. Probably, the huge influx of passengers caused by Covid-19 pandemic and the huge volume of work created tension or aggrevated it. Both passengers and IST staff were under pressure. A relatively modest number of employees and staff at IST were really nice, calm, and helpful. On my way to the gates to board I requested assistance from those two young employees. They got two wheelchairs and made sure we were comfortable. Thank you Ihsan and Aysun. A good point was made by a Turkish Airlines staff at check in desk. She offered us taking our carry on bags with the check in luggage. That was a nice gesture especially with senior people freeing them from carrying bags throughout the layover hours. In our particular case it was almost 11 hours. Potable water is not available in the airport. The price of the smallest bottle in airport shops is unbelievably high.

Not Verified | I had the worst experience with this airport. I lost my phone in one of the airport bathrooms. I went to customer services and the lost and found office to ask about it, everyone was saying I don’t know and sent me to another office. For 2 hours I was walking around myself and I was pregnant and tired, finally a girl from one of the customer services told me to ask at the police office and here my suffering started again. There are no police officers that can speak English, only one understood what I wanted to say and helped me to find my phone, but there was a bigger problem that they refused to give me my phone immediately. I don’t know why and I waited again in the police office for 4 hours watching them laughing, eating and drinking tea. Their boss eventually came to help me get my phone after paying 20 USD. I don’t recommend this airport to anyone. If you forced to choose this airport for any reason, please stay close to your gate as the airport is so big. If you are traveling on Turkish Airlines they are making so many schedule changes so check your ticket every day before traveling.

✅ Trip Verified | Terrible experience at this newly built airport earlier today! Travelled from Cape Town, SA to London Heathrow with a transfer in Istanbul Airport. Although very modern, clean and very very large, the staff are atrocious, not helpful in any way and not friendly. I had bought some metal sculptures in SA, which were conviscated at security in Istanbul as apparently they were 'sharp'. We couldn't put them in our checked suitcases as we thought they were too fragile. I disputed it, and the security officer told me to backtrack through security and speak to the Turkish Airlines desk to get them to put it in hold luggage. After fighting back through the security lines, the man on the desk spoke terrible English, and simply said its not possible due to 'procedures' but wouldn't elaborate. So we then had to line up and go through security again with the end result, we lost our expensive art sculptures, and wasted lots of time through misinformation. To top it off we had to run across the airport to the gate, narrowly avoiding missing our flight, to find out that someone else in our travel party had brought a 2 litre bottle of water through security and they hadn't even noticed.